Capcom Employee Outlines Details on Mega Man Legends 3 Cancellation

Mega Man Legends 3 is still a sore topic for some 3DS owners, as it aimed to involve the Mega Man community through its Devroom forum and promised a prototype version on the 3DS eShop to gauge its potential success. Unfortunately, the prototype and the main game were canned, leading to legions of disgruntled fans and some that were angered at the failure to even release the smaller downloadable part of the project.

There's been a fair amount of dialogue since, though most of the noise has been from fans trying to resuscitate the project. It's remained resolutely dead, however, as has the franchise in general, aside from plenty of commemorative memorabilia and the occasional dressed-up PC fan game.

Capcom employee and Capcom Unity representative GregaMan has taken to a recent thread on the topic of Legends 3 to summarise, as he sees it, the company's stance on the affair. It's an honest round-up of what was innovative about the idea, and also what went wrong.

As some have already pointed out, it's not at all uncommon for games to be canceled mid-production, even (or especially) for major publishers, for major brands. The difference in Legends 3's case is that it was announced publicly from its earliest planning stages, while most games that meet this fate are nixed long before ever being revealed outside office walls. This of course was the whole point — an experiment in transparency for what was clearly a passion project in need of an "angle" — and frankly a pretty odd one, when you think about it. Remember that Legends 3 was essentially a 10-year-late sequel to a sequel to a spin-off, that had middling success even back when it was one of the only games of its kind — before 3D Action-Adventure was an established genre, if you can even remember that far back. And consider its place within the greater Mega Man brand. If you thought DmC was a deviation from the Devil May Cry brand, remember that MML (MmL?) changed virtually everything you could possibly change about Mega Man. Even I remember scoffing at the sight of it until I got my hands on it and realized it stood on its own merits. Then consider that the game was destined for a platform that didn't even exist yet in the wild. All that isn't to say MML3 was a "bad" project — it was just weird. But MML has always been a passion project, not a cash cow. Hence the Devroom angle.

I guess you could say, then, that the cancellation of the project wasn't actually anything out of the ordinary. What was out of the ordinary is that ever[y]body knew about it. The Devroom and the MML3 project's utter transparency were nigh-unprecedented experiments with high risks. They were risks that, sadly, delivered the full brunt of their severity. Look at us. Two years later and we're still here talking about it. I want to know, guys, and please take this question in earnest: Knowing how the project turned out, would you rather have not known about its existence to begin with?

That final point seems to grasp the crux of the matter, with fans disappointed at missing what they thought was a sure thing, rather than being none-the-wiser as is often the case. Gregaman also tackled the widely cited comments of a Capcom Europe employee that was seen to "blame" fans at the time, while ending with an explanation that perhaps explains the level of secrecy we often see from game developers.

If nothing else... hopefully this project has shown you why companies are rarely ever this transparent. As soon as you let the public in on something, you may as well have made a promise. And god forbid it be a premature one.

That said, I believe that the project was itself inherently good. Fan involvement and transparency are still ideals held high by my team and me, and we try to have our games and activities reflect this as much as possible. Believe it or not, we've come a long way since Legends 3, and continue to progress down a promising path. I do hope that you'll stick with us in the future, even if our successes don't take the form you'd originally desired.

It's a good effort to explain the flaws of the project and its eventual failure, even if fans will ultimately question why the — apparently — near complete Prototype version never saw the light of day. In the list of controversial game sagas to affect the 3DS, this one is undoubtedly near the top of the list.

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@SheldonRandoms Great point! I still go back and play MML today, in fact I just started playing it again like last week. I believe that it was good that they let us in on it, but they should have at least released the prototype version for us to enjoy. Even if it did have a few flaws, what are a few glitches among fans?

Capcom's message to the fans: Do continue to support us in the future but we'll never give you this game, NEVER you hear us. Yeah we also will NEVER give you Mega Man Universe and that one MM game made by the Metroid Prime developers either.

Yes, considering the outcome, i would rather had not known about it. The second an din my opinion even bigger problem was the implementation of the servbots (not th eingame ones, the communiuty helper devs). Its one thing to announc ethe cancelation of a game that was developed by the crators only, but a whole other story if you invite fans around the globe to participate. For your regular canceled game, you may just dont get the game, but these people (i was one of them) never get their spend time back. We sat down countless hours discussing things, brainstorming ideas, making concept arts and what not. We (the fans) were already part of it. WE discussed for a whole night how MegaMans armor should look like and why, WE designed bosses and enemys, discussed movesets and such and THEY shut it down out of the blue. The worst part ? They blamed US for it udn til someone tried to put out the fire by saying it was a "translation error".That was the far bigger blow than the cancelation of the game itself if you ask me. They didnt even gave it the chance by outsourcing it for example or even crowdfund it (yes, I suggest crowdfunding). They let all our work, effort and heart go to waste without an explaination, let alone a reason. THATS why we still talk about it. The problem wasnt the cancelation, the problem was how capcom treated us, the fans.The cancelation itself became a problem as soon as it became capcoms favorite meme and as soon as they systematicly killed off the franchise, the character with extreme prejudice.

Capcom speaks of "transparency". They speak of the "fans" that are upset (possibly people who spent lots of hours working on the game for free) just not understanding the game development process and game cancellations. But at no point during Legends 3's development did they mention to anyone that the game could be scrapped at any time even after all the work they received from fans, for free. And don't think people have forgotten Capcom basically used the "development" of the game to blackmail people into signing up on Capcom Unity or how you blamed fans for not doing enough free work for the cancellation of the game.

(Not to be mean) both nintendo & capcom have ips that has only got one game or a japan only release.(capcom its mega man) and nintendo, ice climbers, F-zero, earthbound, star fox, heck balloon battle and thats not half of them. I really dont want a new ip i want new games of the ones above.(VC games dont count)

I love how they write it off as something that we should have expected from the very beginning like, "oh yeah idiots, what did you think was gonna happen? It's not like we hyped up the game like crazy, invited hundreds of fans to make a game 'by the fans for the fans,' and then turned around and stabbed you all in the back with the lame excuse that it was in the early stages of development. Like, come on guys, buy our crappy Mega Man merchandise instead."

With Capcom it seems like we have no idea rather to hate them or love them. As for as their response i dont like it, but at least they were finally honest with us about the game cancellation. But still they really should have gave the prototype

Capcom doesn't have any passion for any Megaman project. ALL of them were canceled.

Wasn't Keiji Inafune complaining about the lack of creative freedom anyway? I'm pretty sure that was one of his reasons for leaving Capcom. Perhaps that could explain why the project ended up such an awkward failure? Sounds quite feasible to me.

It's been a while since CRAPcom has dedicated their time creating game rehashes and living from the glorious paso. Here, have the 4th Street Fighter IV in a 4 year span. Capcom sucks nowadays, they suck badly.

yes, i'd rather have not known at all. it's one thing to find out a decade later 'oh hey, here's some screenshots of a MML3 sequel that never made it into production'... it's another thing to have been actively pursued as a fan of the Legends series into contributing suggestions, to have been told that we'd have at least a prototype version for the 3DS eShop to play, and then to be told that it's been canceled based on a lack of fan interest or whatever. I'm glad you're still talking about it internally, Capcom. I hope it bothers you and weighs on your collective conscience for a very long time. You've earned it.

Well to be honest at this time I don't think anyone is expecting any new Mega Man games, and this is part of the reason. Is it honestly about sales? With the amount of people crying out for a new Mega Man game why don't we have one yet? With all the ones we knew about cancelled its hard to stay on Capcom's side - especially considering how they treated fans after this cancellation.

Well the only point I can agree with is, I would of been happier not knowing at all.

A lot of games and ideas get scraped that we don't know about. For all I know they could of been a megaman crossover game with all the different megamen throughout the franchise fighting together (or against) planned for the 25th anniversary. As long as you don't give me hope and expectation like the gamers for Legend 3, I'm good.

If they really come along way since legend 3, then I hope they finally will release a megaman game that is not rerelease of a older game or a new 8-bit throwback. Feels like the last megaman that wasn't one of the two was "megaman star force".

"But MML has always been a passion project, not a cash cow. Hence the Devroom angle." Every game should get that kind of treatment. All games should be treated as passion projects and Devs should always remain in touch with their fans so they've some idea of what the fans tastes are.

As far as not knowing about it or not... Yeah I would've liked to known about it. I'd rather have closure on something knowing that it was cancelled than rather to have not known why it never happened or never released to begin with. To constantly wait for something that never comes is nearly unbearable in the long run.

Man, that guy said a lot of words for basicly saying "we f*ed up huge, we shouldn't have announced it", and guess what, you really shouldn't have UNLESS you where actually gonna release it ><

How was MML3 a weird project?!? You have tons of peeved 3DS owners AND Mega Man fans angry now cause you promised something, and you canceled it, yet another Mega Man game gone. If you can't make a Mega Man game, get someone else to do it ¬¬ I love you Capcom, but your stance on Mega Man lately is very stupid and irritating lately.

It seemed they were literally days away from releasing a demo onto the Eshop. They had just had a huge piece in Nintendo Power. Then a couple weeks after that the project was no more. Weird the way this got canned

Though I never played a Legends game this was the main reason I bought my 3ds day one. I so badly wanted to try it out and the thought of cheap trial version for early access made me want it even more. Sadly it got cancelled and then the 3ds price drop happened, and I was left feeling really sad that I bought the 3ds (even with the free 20 games). Now of course the 3ds is one of my favorite systems, but this game I feel still has a chance at the market. Capcom should of released the trial on the eshop. That would of shown how much interest was in the project and if no one bought and they had to cancel it; it would of not hurt so many fans so much. But then again Capcom only cares about money now as any big corporation would, and if releasing 5 million versions of Street Fighter 4 makes them money fine. I don't have any interest in that and I won't buy it.

Lol I also get so depressed when talking about this game. Not just because of how it was cancelled but how Capcom just out of no where said f you guys it is all your guys' fault and cancelled it. I know a few people that were always on the forums there and just to blame fans for your problems in really low Capcom. You are not the same as you once were and now all you care to do about megaman is to release the old games and sell merchandise for what is basically your guys' mascot. The best news I heard forever was when the blue bomber was announced for smash and I watched it live before school (Pacific time zone I get to watch all the nintendo directs before I go to school) and was happy the whole day just thinking about a character in a fighting game. You have fans who care about megaman and will throw money at their computer screen to see him get a new game.

I was really looking forward to MML3 and MMU. MMU really had me interested but that one is dead too. I have some faith that Capcom will do the right thing with Mega Man but part of me fears that a Mega Man FPS is going to take priority. Retro showed that you could take a 2D side scrolling game and transition it to first person but that's just not the Mega Man that I want.

legends never die, Capcom (like @SheldomRandoms said, lol). i hope this game stains your reputation among fans for until you go bankrupt. FOUR megaman games you've cancelled, FOUR. don't you dare tell me it's "it's not uncommon for games to be cancelled in mid-production" or whatever. and you talk about the game not being able to get good enough sales, even though there are THOUSANDS of fans pissed out of their right minds at you. you're screwing us over on purpose >:[ honestly i couldn't give a single crap about Resident Evil, you ruined it.

Now that's a rather dubious question. I imagine anyone who motivated themselves to conjure up potential ideas or content would feel a little jilted for being specifically mobilized towards a fruitless endeavor. As for everyone else, I see little other than sheer disillusionment to be gleaned from having their wildest dreams (I think MML3 qualifies) dashed.

Sure, transparency at any stage is commendable. However, the real problem here is asking for investment in a project with very little security or stability... And no transparency to that effect. If nothing else, Capcom was entirely capable of shoring the project up on the front end. Instead they dropped the ball when they solicited said fan investment before clarifying their ability to reciprocate.

What I don't understand is their cold indifference to the franchise overall. Ok, I might buy that Legends 3 and Universe were risks that Capcom was unwilling to follow through, but to show up on the year of Mega Man's 25th is pathetic. Like the series or not, Sega honored Sonic in a big way when he turned 20 by giving him a very good game that honored both his past and his future. Sonic Generations was a perfect 20th anniversary birthday gift for a series that is important to gaming.

Nintendo has gone out of their way to put out collections to honor Mario and Kirby on their 25th and 20th birthdays, and they went the extra mile with Zelda in 2011.

Even Square Enix, a company with a reputation that is a low as Capcom's at this point put out a Final Fantasy collection.

What has Capcom done to honor Mega Man? They took a fanmade game and dumped it on the internet, put out a Rush Kleenex box, resold a bunch of old Mega Man games and put out a statue.

And yet, not a single game. Capcom why not do a Mega Man 11? Hell at this point, I would be happy with a collection!

Street Fighter got a collection last year, why can't Mega Man get the same treatment? Mega Man helped make Capcom the company that it is today. He was one of their first successes on home consoles, and the fact that they toss him aside and give token lipservice to fans.

Pretty much the only good thing that has happened to Mega Man this year was being in Smash Bros Wii U & 3DS, and even that was pretty much thanks to Nintendo.

Sega, Nintendo, and Square Enix got things right when it came time to honor their characters.

Capcom, I would have been happy with a Mega Man Collection. I would have been happy with a Mega Man 11. I'm not asking for Legends 3 to be put back into development but this treatment of Mega Man is pathetic.

@Guitardude7 Just the fact that you said "treating him like a Cash Cow" makes you hard to take seriously. Mega Man is not a him. Mega Man is a product, and like all products its relevance is directly tied to what a "cash cow" it can be.On a more serious note, Mega Man is a dated franchise that never translated properly to current gen, just like Sonic. He'll never be huge again, and there's not really anything wrong with that.

@ WaveBoypersonally I'll wait for Street Fighter Ultra Neon Lightning Confetti pulse hooters remix:Gold Edition. They have staved off my ire with monster hunter but honestly that is it. I'll fully reconsider when the send out a 3DS MML Collection. I don't care how poorly they think it may do. It's the least they can do for the MML fans and honestly I think it would also serve to help heal the rift they created. Words are cheap; action give proof their words. And until they do I don't see this ending ever, not even in another 2 years.

@Guitardude7 Just the fact that you said "treating him like a Cash Cow" makes you hard to take seriously. Mega Man is not a him. Mega Man is a product, and like all products its relevance is directly tied to what a "cash cow" it can be.On a more serious note, Mega Man is a dated franchise that never translated properly to current gen, just like Sonic. He'll never be huge again, and there's not really anything wrong with that.

I have to agree in part. I found the blue bomber to be much better off in 2d land style. But seeing as how Retro gave us an amazing new look in Metroid Prime I feel the same can be said of Megaman. It's not a guarantee but then what truly is? Some of the greatest things come from throwing caution to the wind and creatively just pour your heart out. Two things that are very hard for Capcom and also the very things that the Megaman 2 team did. I am not sure where I read the article but that was the case since the first was ok in sale and they were told that if the 2nd didn't do well it would very likely be the last of Megaman.

@MideonNViscera Yes Megaman is a him. Megaman is a character and I refer to characters as their assumed gender. I call Mario him, I call Link him, I call Samus her, it's just he way I refer to these characters. I treat these characters as people because to the creators, thats who they are, a person and besides, calling these characters a product just makes the whole thing souless. I can refer to Megaman as a him if I want. It doesn't make my opinion harder to take seriously. No need to be technical now. But your point is valid about Megaman being dated, I agree. Though I dont think Sonic is dated, he's still rather popular and his games are good now. Sonic team just screwed up for awhile.

@ecco6t9Would make for a great plot-driven kind of game, but I doubt that VanillaWare could make a good MegaMan title.

But I really appreciate that GregaMan went the way to FINALLY give us an explanation. Not neccessarily a good excuse for this fatal disappointment, but at least something to understand it a bit. And yes, it would've been better for all of us if it had never been known.

If Capcom tried this approach with a standalone title or at least something on a much smaller scale, it wouldn't have ended like this. Now Capcom sucks to many fans, and MegaMan is officially considered dead.

To be honest, Mega Man Legends failed to ever spike my interest at all. And keep in mind that the original NES Mega Man games were probably the first video gaming obsession of my life. It's just that when you have a franchise that succesful, that iconic, you just don't deconstruct it in that level. Innovation is always good, but MML was a total reboot. It was bound to alienate a lot of fans, even if it stood on its own merits (which I don't necessarily think it did).

I do think there are ways to improve classic Mega Man gameplay in the future, and I hope Capcom is at least willing to consider the possibility. If it does happen, though, I hope it isn't anything like MML.

it doesnt really matter to me that the game was popularized and then cancelled, if its a series that you like, you eventually find out about cancelled games (castlevania for dreamcast anyone?) and it still makes you sad.

Capcom, if the company had a face I'd punch it in the balls. Yes, I would have preferred to have never known about this to begin with. They could have at least warned us that the project could be cancelled at any time. Especially one a lot of fans have been waiting for so passionately. The whole Legends 3 situation just pi**ed me off.

There was really so many reasons not to like Megaman Legends yet I loved it. The cheesy voice acting actually completely made it so incredibly good. It made the game feel like an interactive Anime. The controls were a bit clunky but were fine once you put some time into the game. Would like to see another one day and I'd actually like to replay the original sometime.

@Retro_on_theGo No offense, man, but I think it was pretty clear that it could be cancelled at any time. Don't get me wrong, I'm as sad as you are that it was cancelled, but it was too early in its life, and was too experimental. The 3DS wasn't doing well at the time, either. They never really made the promise that it was gonna take fruition in the first place - they pretty much stated that the Devroom and the Prototype were there to guage popularity, or at least it should've been obvious that's what they were for. It was a risky project that could've been cancelled at any time, we just didn't want to believe it was so.

And yes, I would've preferred companies didn't tell us about these kind of risky projects. I don't want to know about all the great games that got canned before they ever really became a thing...

If Capcom felt that Megaman Legends 3 was not turning out the way they had envisioned, then they probably had a good reason to cancel it. That being said hopefully there will be a new Megaman game in the future that fans will love.

Its classic over explanation of the terrible trending state of the industry. Gaming has become far to mainstream, and because of its mainstream streak, it has become too costly, too risky to not go with a sure thing. Why make something interesting, or a long awaited sequel, when you can simply ride whatever-johnny-come-lately-lightning in a bottle bs until the public is sick of it?

We seen this happen a million times with companies like activision with guitar hero and what not, I just hope that capcom gets their poopiedoodledoodoo together before we are left with ten thousand resident evil games and ten thousand street fighters and nothing else.

If the game was never a sure thing and such a risk to begin with they should never have gotten fans involved in the first place. Yes, games get cancelled, but they hyped the game up as if it was a surefire thing as long as they got enough fans onboard. Fans would still be mad about the game getting canned but its better than getting their hopes up like that.

@DarkKirby And why exactly should they have outlined that? ALL games, movies, music, etc. have a chance for cancellation, and these fans overreacted and acted as if they've never seen this before. Quite frankly, it was a failed experiment from the start. They shouldn't have announced it so early and made it so public.

Would I rather have never known about it? Yeah. Yeah, I'd rather have never been given the chance to have one of my favorite franchises revived and then cut a year later. When they announced MML3, I was out of my chair. I was a kid again. It was brilliant. When it was cancelled, I was nearly in tears, and all of that positive hope and emotion went south.

Transparency is fine and good but honestly if you're not going to follow through with your own statements of providing a prototype and let us show you the support with our money, you've only shown us how little you care about what we want.

I just don't get how a company that made such great games can screw up this badly. They cancel games that people are interested in, like Maverick Hunter and MML3 and instead give us horrible Resident Evil games some sort of rehashed Street Fighter game every year.

1. Inafune left - Maybe Capcom felt they couldn't do it w/o him. Maybe they cancelled it as a revenge; payback against Inafune. Though, I actually believe it's the former, & not the latter.

2. Like a few have said already, & most here have been aware: The 3ds was not doing well back then; when it first came out. Now it's fine, as far as I am concerned.

3. Maybe they honestly didn't feel it would make enough money, both on its own, & especially concerning point 2.

No matter what the reason, I don't really know if the majority of (the)fans are legitimately upset at the loss of time spent/invested on this project, or just saying that as an excuse to be angry. I would imagine there are some that legitimately don't mind the loss of (their) time involved, & some that legitimately are upset (at that/said loss). Either way, Capcom should have made it extremely well, & clear, that this project may have not gone the full trip, & especially so, considering that the fan-base may be made up of people who are younger kids, &/or people who are not familar with the commonplace occurences of the game industry, & don't know that their involvement might be for nothing. As a co., they could have handled the blow to fans, in such a way, that is didn't have to be such a sharp, & possibly bitter blow.

Personally, I'm the kind that likes to know about games, even at that, apparently very initial stage of development. The only hurt knowing about cancelled games is, it can damage the reputation of a system, especially a new system, like the 3ds was about 2 years ago.

Konami is just as bad as capcom these days, they've practically abandoned all of their classic franchises. That, or they`ve sent them off to talentless western devs that have completely butchered the Silent Hill series(Save for maybe the Wii version of SH: SS), meanwhile Castlevania has morphed into a god of war clone and the latest 3DS sequal was a giant steaming pile of Koopatroopa poop. And then there`s Contra....Which is nowhere to be seen. I seriously hope that Bill Rizer makes it in Super Smash Bros 4.

These days, I`m usually just keeping my eye on Nintendo(Including Hal, Retro Studios, GoodFeel ect), WayForward and the new born YACHT CLUB.

Ok, Nintendo needs to buy all these franchises that have been laying dormant or just changed for the worst. Capcom doesn't deserve Megaman, and I don't even know what Konami is doing with Castlevania. I'm sorry but I'm so mad at this.

I like how he blamed the fans again. "Oh we never promised anything, it's all the fans' fault for expecting too much."

How about not announcing games if you're still likely to cancel them? And how about not promising to release a Prototype version on 3DS to gauge interest and then canceling the game without even fulfilling that promise (which was, BTW, an actual promise no matter what they say)? The fault is 100% on Capcom and 0% on the fans, they handled the whole situation extremely poorly and by the comments of this GregaMan person, they are continuing to handle it poorly.

@mjc0961 Games can be cancelled at any time, for any reason. I can think of 10 games that got much farther along than Mega Man Legends 3 that were cancelled for various reasons. It's a shame, but it's just how things work.

I wondering if anyone still has the dev kits they gave out during the fan inclusion to help develop the game? o3o Would be worth a shot to make their own version of the game if whomever had the know how.